The present invention concerns an aircraft monument, an aircraft galley having the aircraft monument, an aircraft having such aircraft monument and/or such aircraft galley, as well as a method of operating such aircraft monument.
In modern aircraft, functional units, such as kitchen units (galleys), toilet units (lavatories), or stowage units, are usually designed as so called aircraft monuments. Such aircraft monuments are, for example, described in documents DE 10 2011 013 049 A1 and WO 2015/014850 A1. Typically, these aircraft monuments are block-shaped, and arranged such as to extend from the passenger cabin floor to the ceiling of the passenger cabin, and between the aircraft cabin outer wall and an aisle of the aircraft or, in larger aircraft having two aisles, optionally also between the aisles. Being arranged in this manner, the aircraft monuments essentially divide the aircraft cabin into a plurality of seat blocks, such as for different seating classes. The monuments are constituted by a plurality of parts fit to the aircraft monument in a closely packed manner.
Examples of a conventional aircraft monument 8 and a conventional aircraft galley 9 are shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. FIG. 1 illustrates schematically the architecture of an aircraft monument 8 in a front view, which monument 8 is generally divided into an upper section 10 and a lower section 12, and comprises a plurality of walls 13 separating box-shaped compartments. In the lower section 10, three such compartments are formed, together fitting three equally sized trolleys 14, 16, 18. The trolleys are provided for carrying supplies, e.g., meals or medical equipment for the passengers or other items required by the staff on board the aircraft. The upper section 10 is separated from the lower section 12 by one of the walls 13 that is arranged horizontally. In the compartments of the upper section 10, various galley inserts are arranged, namely a 3-mode-fridge 20, a steam oven 22, three further galley inserts in the form of so called standard units 24, a non-electric galley insert 26, as well as a control unit 28. The front surface of each of these galley inserts is essentially coplanar with the front surface of each of the trolleys 14, 16, 18.
As shown in FIG. 2, the aircraft galley 9 comprises two aircraft monuments 8. The aircraft monument 8 shown on the left hand side of FIG. 2 is arranged with its front, i.e., its side by which the galley inserts are to be accessed and operated and by which the trolleys can be inserted into and taken out of the respective second section, being parallel to the flight direction of the aircraft (i.e., the longitudinal direction of the aircraft). Accordingly, the (front of this) monument is accessed from an aisle 25 of the aircraft. The further aircraft monument 8 shown on the right-hand side of FIG. 2 is arranged perpendicularly to the latter aircraft monument 8, thus, such that its front is perpendicular to the flight direction (i.e., parallel to the transversal direction of the aircraft). This further aircraft monument is accessed via an entrance area 11 connecting an aircraft door (not shown) with the aisle 25 of the passenger cabin.